Dramatically Reducing Embodied Carbon in Europe

About the Project

In 2021, the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance launched the project “Dramatically Reducing Embodied Carbon in Europe”, a three-year project funded by the Laudes Foundation which aims to foster widespread adoption of ambitious local, national and regional policies that will reduce embodied carbon and increase the uptake of bio-based materials in the built environment in Europe.

The Project undertakes four main activities:

1. Identify and recruit leading cities poised for ambitious policy development, adoption and implementation, in partnership with CNCA members and lead partners in the project
2. Foster the adoption of ambitious embodied carbon and biobased material policies in 10-20 cities through technical support, involvement of communities, close industry dialogue and peer learning
3. Advocate for national policy adoption to prompt the national level to develop policy that better enables cities to reach their embodied carbon targets and to change regulatory red tape that hampers cities’ embodied carbon work
4. Build a coalition of cities, national-level stakeholders, industry and civil society groups to advocate for EU level policy adoption that enable local and national governments to pursue more ambitious embodied carbon targets

Press Release: European cities launch ambitious effort to reduce embodied carbon with grant from Laudes Foundation

Supporting Materials

Created to educate, inspire, and encourage cities to take action on embodied carbon and bio-based materials in their built environment.

• Embodied Carbon Policy Framework for Dramatically Reducing Embodied Carbon: launched in the fall of 2020 by CNCA, this report contains 52 policies cities can adopt to reduce embodied carbon. It collects best practices, mostly from cities in Europe and North America, and introduces new policies, not yet implemented anywhere in the world.
• Factsheets & Q&A for communicating the importance of embodied carbon and bio-based materials in the Built Environment
• 2021 Media Snapshot of the coverage of embodied carbon and bio-based materials across the EU
• Recommendations (addressed to leading European cities) to move faster and farther in policies related to embodied carbon and bio-based materials

Communications & Storytelling

Created to share cities’ major sustainable and circular construction efforts.

• Helsinki: the city presents Wood City, a new landmark project in terms of materials and sustainability. Through a series of interviews, the city illustrates the health, workplace, and environmental benefits of wood construction. Watch this 3-part series to learn more about how Helsinki is rethinking its built environment and promoting more sustainable approaches in its city buildings.

• Amsterdam: the city has high ambitions towards becoming a climate neutral and circular city by 2050. To achieve this goal, Amsterdam has embarked on the journey to highly improve their living environment by renovating in a circular way, making the best use of already existing materials and minimizing the environmental impact of their building processes through embodied carbon and bio-based related friendly practices. To learn more about this transformation, watch the inspiring stories of De Warren, a 36 social and mid-market rental apartments within a housing cooperation aiming towards high sustainability principles in construction—and De Vondeltuin, one of the first circular buildings that Amsterdam’s City Council has realized.

Resources

• Amsterdam Circular Toolbox: in 2021 the City of Amsterdam published 10 articles on circular construction practices together with their partners Cooper8 and Metabolic. The City finds it very valuable to share knowledge with their international network and invite everyone to dive into the articles in order to gather a better understanding of the transition currently going through on a global scale.
• Platform CB23: aims to connect in the Netherlands construction-wide parties with circular ambitions, both in the civil engineering sector and in residential and non-residential construction. In July 2020, Platform CB’23 launched versions 2.0 of a lexicon about Circular Construction and two guides about Measuring Circularity in the Building Sector and about Guide Passports for the Construction Sector.
• Clean Construction Policy Explorer: C40’s interactive dashboard to explore the policies and actions that cities around the world are taking to tackle the embodied emissions of their built environment
• Report on Embodied Carbon Benchmark Data for European Buildings: published by One Click LCA according to EN 15978:2011 & LEVEL(S) Framework. The research aims to provide high quality, European embodied carbon benchmark data supporting policy creation publicly and freely available to various regulators and private organisations seeking to establish corporate policies that require pan-European information.
• EU Taxonomy for Built Environment Explained with EBRD: webinar organized by One Click LCA to review best practices of construction carbon regulations in Europe
• 2050 Materials’ Platform with sustainability data of building products
• Climate Kic Net Zero Playbook — Bio-based and Circular Buildings for Healthy, Clean Cities: a handbook developed by Climate Kic to help cities reduce embodied carbon in construction